THIRTY-THIRD BIENNIAL, vSESSION 
165 
problems demonstrate beyond a doubt that it is one of the practices that must 
be followed out as rigidly as is possible. Failure to properly thin increases 
cost of marketing many fold and reduces the net returns possible from the 
orchard. 
A very interesting condition existed during the past year in the fact 
that there was a heavy demand for cooking apples very early in the season 
which gave many growers an opportunity to market their second thinnings 
at a profit, and at this time remove a lot of fruit that later in the season 
would not be marketable above cost. 
The Market Problem. 
Growers are realizing all over the Pacific Northwest that it is com- 
paratively easy to grow fine, clean, well colored fruit, but that the serious 
problem of the work is the satisfactory marketing of the crop after it is 
prepared for market. The average fruit commission man has made his 
last big easy haul and from now on he must use different tactics to divert 
the fruit into his channel, and even then there is serious danger of ex- 
posure if he does not play the game somewhere nearly square. The 
growers are realizing more and more that the small producer of less than a 
few carloads of fruit must co-operate with other producers of fruit or remain 
at the mercy of the unscrupulous commission man, and so while there is a 
lot of fruit outside of any selling organization whatever, the quantity is 
rapidly decreasing and the time will soon come when the marketing of 
the major portion of the fruit crops will be under the direction of one of 
the big co-operative selling agencies. 
The growers, as a general rule, are very competent in preparing the 
fruit for market and they know how to display it to the best advantage; 
however, there are a few yet who fail to recognize that the value of an 
honest pack in assisting the sales of future crops lies in the fact that it must 
be practiced every year. An interesting condition that was supposed to 
have passed out of existence with the coming of large yields 
In all parts of the country has prevailed again this year in the West: 
The producers of an extra fancy grade of fruit have been marketing it 
personally to a special trade, at a very special price. The most interesting 
part of this condition is that good extra fancy fruits (no better than the 
average extra fancy grade), were sold at almost double the ordinary price 
to a trade that heretofore bought none at all because of the very inferior 
grade of fruit that has always been offered to them even at a low price. 
In the past it has been just as difficult, in many fruit districts, to secure a 
box of extra fancy apples as it is to secure anything but condensed milk 
on a cattle ranch. A few producers of extra fancy grades have come to 
realize that while there is only a limited trade of this kind, it is a good 
trade, and one that should be supplied. This is a peculiar trade, frequently 
calling for varieties not commonly grown in the West, and not being 
satisfied with anything else. There iis a strong temptation to plant 
for this trade, but I am of the opinion that it would be a mistake to do this, 
since many of these varieties, even after being grown here in the West, 
are not the same quality as the same variety grown in the East. This ap- 
plies especially to such apples as the Rambo, Northern >Spy, Red Astrachan, 
